Dec 30. I didn't get to run my 5K in Denver — in any case, it was postponed until Jan 7 due to weather — but I did sign up for a 5K here at the last minute.

I was not sure whether to go all out and try for a PR, or to hang back and just post a time. In the event, I decided to go all out, but it was a tough course and I finished far from a PR, posting a time of 28:31. That put me 23rd overall (out of 48 male runners) and 5th among men 40-49.

When the picture was taken, I was filling in for the regular At-Work leader, Kristin, so I guess I'm just lucky.

Dec 24. Well, I went running yesterday after all, so that makes 3.5 miles for Saturday and 7 miles for the week. Not much, but it's a start. I hope to ramp up to 12-15 mi/week before the "official" start of my training calendar on Jan 14.

I didn't feel well enough to go skiing today, even though there was a layer of fresh powder according to the report. Now that's sick.

As I write this, we're watching the Cincinnati-Denver football game and rooting for the Broncos, of course. The Red Dogs are locked up; Dylan gets too excited by watching football and Roxy gets too excited listening to it. So, only Annie is out. She decided that I was very interesting since I was eating popcorn, and so she sat on my lap and gave me a big doggie hug — as long as I was giving her the occasional kernel. When the popcorn ran out, so did her love.

Dec 23. So, the gym is closed today (Saturday before Christmas, what were they thinking?) and it's too icy to run outside, plus I feel like crud from some sort of cold virus that's got ahold of me. Those are my excuses for not exercising, anyway.

The Associated Press liked the bit with the squirrel photographs. My favorite? "Have had a chance to set up a couple of IDS/IPS evasion bots, perimeter scanning came up clean. Small SQL injection issue merged with XSS shows that the backend database may be either 768-bit encrypted or a simple 3DES matter, but a little more time should take care of that issue. Once the tables are writable to sa, should be ready to jump in and jump out with no problem. One of their systems caught an early sniff, but was shut down with a smurf."

Now, I'm not horribly technical, but I know BS when I read it. Apparently, Shriber does not.

Dec 21. The Winter Solstice, and therefore the shortest day of the year.

I went for a run yesterday, but did not do a good job of picking my route, so I ended up walking part of it and just generally getting out of sorts from the experience. Roxy was with me, and that made it bearable.

Today's news was dominated by a winter storm that hammered Denver. Parts of the city got up to 3 feet of snow, which is pretty incredible. We don't yet know the impact on our travel plans for next week.

We tried fitting the dog crates in the Subaru and it looks like that will work okay, so we may leave the van here even though it's not all that comfortable to travel long distances in the Subaru. Still, it has a lot better footing especially on windy or slick highways. We're still working on that one.

Tomorrow is supposed to bring six inches of snow here. The last one passed us by and hit Denver hard; maybe this one will bring us enough for skiing and a spring with ample water. We'll see.

A Republican appointee would create a 50-50 tie and effectively allow the GOP to retain Senate control because of Vice President Dick Cheney's tie-breaking vote. (What happens if Johnson has to be replaced? )

There is ample precedent for senators to continue to hold office while incapacitated.

Reid appeared on "This Week" on ABC.

Dec 17. The passage at left is reprinted exactly as I found it on the CNN web page.

Dec 16. So, I got Snarked by Miss Snark, but I still got a better one-sentence review than some. Also, I am gratified by the comments section. (If you go to that link, it's #9. I also submitted #10, which was a complete miss as far as Miss Snark went, but again, some of the comments by "Snarklings" indicated that others "got" it.)

I'm bowed, but not broken, and I'm sure I will soldier on. I take her point.

Meanwhile, I took the opportunity to go on a group run this morning. Six miles and change, from 25th and Grant along the Ogden River Parkway up to Rainbow Gardens and then back. It was cold. Plus, the other five guys were much faster than me, but I'm used to that. I did my 10 minute miles and let them do their thing while I did mine. It's good to get out.

To help keep track and motivate myself, I've decided to keep a running calendar of sorts. I'm sure there's a New Years' Resolution in there somewhere.

All this has me feeling particularly mardy-arsed today. (The name was first applied to me by an Internet penpal, who hails from Yorkshire.) I feel like I'm — not exactly a failure, because that would be more interesting — damned mediocre at everything I put my hand to. I'm sure that feeling will pass. It's hormones or something.

Roxy is limping today; her left front shoulder appears to be wrenched. We'll need to keep an eye on it. Luckily, no agility trials are scheduled until after the New Year. Oh, agility — another thing I'm mediocre at. See how being mardy-arsed works?

At right, you'll find the hook I'm going to use, after much deliberation and energy spent by multiple parties helping me edit it.

Wish me luck.

The Hook

Jennifer Morgan had always been gorgeous. Men were enchanted by her beauty, not by her brains, and she eagerly took things from them: her high school diploma, her undemanding job, even her expensive car. Now, thanks to an out-of-control virus, she is forced to trade. The infection devours her beauty as it develops her brain.

As her life spins out of control, so do events in the lab that created the virus. Jennifer must fight to reconstruct her relationships with family and friends as her brain reconstructs itself. Meanwhile, researchers struggle to unlock the potential of a virus that has the capacity to maim, but also to cure.

Is the high-stakes game of finding happiness as dangerous — even as deadly — as the high-stakes game of cutting-edge science? Infectious Beauty explores the inner confines of the brain research laboratory — and the inner confusion of the brain of a 32 year old woman who is in the process of being reborn.

Kodiak and Annie

Dec 10. While working on updating my personal web page, including a new resumé, I came across this old photograph still residing on a University of Mississippi Medical Center server.

(Take a look at the new web pages and tell me what you think.)

It is back in the olden days of the World Wide Web, when there were maybe a few thousand web pages (total) in existence, and we all used NCSA Mosaic as our browser, since that was the only browser there was.

I posted it on the server as part of one of the first web pages I designed, perhaps about 1994. I think it's not only one of the first web pages I made, but also one of the first pictures of dogs posted on the internet. It's black and white because I used film that I developed and printed myself. I had to pay someone to scan it since there were no scanners at the university then.

Dec 3. Okay, so I've been bad about updating the RoxyLog. As my friends know, there's a very good excuse — actually several good excuses.

We spent Saturday and Sunday (Dec 2 and 3) at a local USDAA dog agility trial. Dylan did very well and we are confident that his rehab is coming along nicely. Rosemary and I were very proud of him. I even got to run him in Jumpers.

Roxy continues her progress. She is showing a lot more confidence outside the ring, and is doing much better inside the ring as well. She picked up her second Starters Snooker leg and came close on her second Starters Gamblers leg.

Also, she came that close (I am holding my thumb and forefinger about 2 mm apart) to getting a Pairs leg. She was paired with the magnificent ACD Rita (owned by Debi Jacques) and Rita had a phenomenal, fast, clean run. Roxy both goofed off and knocked a bar (a 5 sec penalty) and overall, we were less than a second over. If Roxy had not knocked the bar, or if she had goofed off a bit less, we would have qualified.

Roxy's and Dylan's weekend runs were good enough to convince us to try and enter the next trial in this "area", (not that close, but we are willing to travel far for USDAA) which will be Jan 6 & 7 in Castle Rock, Colorado. That will allow us to spend some time with family, since I grew up near there. The drive may be a little dicey that time of year, and I need to be back at 8 am on Monday, Jan 8 to start teaching (see below), so that will be a challenge.

If you scroll down a bit, you'll see my NaNoWriMo winner icon. That occupied my spare time during the month of November.

As long as I'm plugging my own work, I'd like to mention a book of poetry written by my 43Things friend, Ruth Goring. It's called Yellow Doors and you can buy it on Amazon. If you get a copy, let me know and I will send it to Ruth to be inscribed.

I am a horrible poet. If I can write at all — some would debate that — it's in prose. That's why I really admire Ruth's way with words, because she is a poet, and I am not. Her poetry does not make me want to puke; mine does.

I am getting adjusted to my new work. The people that I'm now working with a very, very nice, and the Health Sciences Department has some excellent teachers in it, which sets a high standard for me to aspire to. I start teaching January 8, so for now, I'm auditing classes, moving into my new office, and getting adjusted.

I'll be teaching two sections of Biomedical Core second semester (Health Sciences 1111), which is a course that all the health professions students take. I may also help out with Medical Terminology.

I bought a season ticket to Snowbasin so I hope to make good use of that. I went up for a half-day so far, right after our recent snowfall, the first big one of the year, but the conditions were still pretty icy and I even did some rock skiing, so I will get to practice my P-Tex technique later in the season.

Roxy Learns to Hold

Dylan in Place

Shannon Poulson was nice enough to forward these pictures, which are from a warmer time. We were up in Pocatello, Idaho for an outdoor trial at the end of September.

Roxy and I spend our spare time at trials working on little obedience exercises, or just having fun. When these pictures were taken, we were trying to get Roxy to understand the concept of "hold". The obedience dumbbell and the wooden spoon are just two of the things Roxy is asked to hold onto. She's still working on that, but I don't work with her as much as I should.

Annie, of course, with her much longer and more illustrious obedience career, knows how to hold stuff, so sometimes we give her the chance so that she can show off what she knows and also in the hopes that Roxy will watch and learn. Who knows how well that works.